Book Review: The Performance Management Revolution

March 18, 2009 — ez

I just finished reading The Performance Management Revolution: Business Results Through Insight and Action by Howard Dresner. I chose this book because of the respect I have for Howard Dresner due to what he’s done for BI and EPM (Enterprise Performance Management), not to mention his past leadership role at Hyperion as Chief Strategy Officer. Also, the title of the book peaked my curiousity and I wanted to gain insight into what Dresner has termed the Performance Management Revolution. He begins the book by luring the reader with why he feels we are admist a Performance Management Revolution. Throughout the book, he hits on his term, Information Democracy, which is “a principle of equality that demands actionable insight for all.” It gives the “ability of everyone to access data, turn it into knowledge and insight through analysis, and share that insight with others.”

I very much enjoyed reading the book. I felt he did a good job distinguishing the differences between BI and EPM as these terms often become blended together. The book describes how to implement EPM, going into detail on such topics as why you need an EPM Center of Excellence, how to create one, and what they should do. If you are looking for a book that teaches you how to create KPI’s and how to best design a dashboard layout, you will want to look elsewhere. But if you are needing to implement an Enterprise-wide Performance Management solution, this is a great book for setting you straight. I particularly liked the chapter on gaining user adoption.

The book is broken into three sections: 1. A Call to Arms. 2. Preparing For Battle. 3. Let the Revolution Begin. Part One defines EPM and it’s role, thus providing justification for an EPM solution at your organization. Part Two tells you what you are going to need to get started and the tasks to help the success rate of your EPM system. Examples include drawing an accountability map, building an EPM Center of Excellence, standardizing and consolidating EPM tools, and how to deploy an EPM system. Part Three helps you assess your immediate priorities based upon a series of questions. Dresner dives into his concept of a “model EPM methodology”. He follows the steps of implementation, education, change management, etc. The book concludes with an excellent glossary of EPM/BI terminology.

Dresner has turned me into a Performance Management Revolutionary. Count me in for the revolution! Click here to purchase the book from Amazon.

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2 Responses to “Book Review: The Performance Management Revolution”

Thank you for such a glowing review and recommendation! Please watch for my next book, which focuses upon “performance-driven cultures”. It should be available by year’s end and will also be published by John Wiley & Sons.